Following the zeal to revive river Ganga and blue print presented by the Centre before the Supreme Court to take forward the Clean Ganga Mission, a dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the international funding agency World Bank has come up with its bit into it.
Jharkhand Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation limited with the funding coming in tune of $ 1 billion meant for the states falling along the pristine river i.e. Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, has invited bidders for building two sewerage treatment plants of 5 and 7 million litre a day capacity at Sahibgunj district of Jharkhand. The plants would dedicatedly deal with the liquid waste going directly into the river.
The qualified expert agency would design and build the sewerage treatment plants and all the required structures, conduct survey, design and construct completely underground sewerage network all along the 55 kilometers stretch of Ganga in the district.
“The agency would also operate and maintain the sewerage plants, the entire sewerage network built and the pumping stations for 10 years period. Rs 99 crore has been sanctioned by the Center for the project which is fully WB funded,” said Pramod Kumar Sinha, Project Director of JUIDCl on Thursday.
As per estimate 7.7 MlD sewerage water is generated from Sahibgunj which would be carried through seven pumping stations coming up. The pumping stations are to be built to carry the effluents generated at industrial units as well as at households to the two treatment plants which otherwise channeled into the river untreated. Similar project would come for another town of Jharkhand Rajmahal located on the banks of Ganga, informed the Project Director. The selected agency would have to commission the plants within 27 months of the work getting allocated.
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World Bank steps in for sewerage plants, drainage system
last date for submitting the bids has been fixed as November 15 this year which would be opened for evaluations on 17th of the month.
The State Government and Urban local Body of Sahibgunj have already entered into an MoU to implement the project forming a part of the NGRBA programme. The boost from the World Bank in the form of the cost of the project has come through the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) of the Ministry of Environment and Forest after the new regime at the Centre took up the challenge afresh.
The Centre had earlier included Sahibgunj into the endeavour to make the Ganga pollution-free by defining the role of village panchayats situated along the river basin in the district. Drinking Water and Sanitation Department and ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan’ are to be channelised and have to work in a coordinated manner.
Contribution from the State is also coming in the form of Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board that has chipped in with the mission to clean Damodar and Subarnarekha, the two major tributaries of Ganga in Jharkhand.